Y Combinator is an American seed money startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 2,000 companies, including Stripe, Airbnb, DoorDash, Dropbox, Twitch, and @Reddit. The company's accelerator program is in Mountain View, California, and was founded in 2005 by Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston. Robert Tappan Morris, and Trevor Blackwell. [1] Y combinator makes small investments in return for small stakes in the companies they fund. The goal is to get startups through the first phase--getting them to the point where they have built something impressive enough to raise money on a larger scale. The company then introduces them to later-stage investors or acquirers, which starts the second phase. In the second phase, Y Combinator helps with legal matters, intellectual property questions, disputes, and matching start-ups with their first hires. Y Combinator runs two three-month funding cycles a year, one from January through March and one from June through August. The company then asks the founders of each startup to move to the Bay Area for the duration of their cycle, during which they work intensively with them to get the company into the best shape possible. Each cycle culminates in an event called Demo Day, at which the startups present to an audience that now includes most of the world’s top startup investors. [2]

Reflections

"Yeah once they are out of there they fall off a cliff." ~ @Hartmut Esslinger [source]

References

Creators

#citizensofone (See: 📝Citizens of One)
#ycombinator (See: 📝Y Combinator)